SECOND EDITION Revised 2021 This first book of the series, A HISTORY OF A CATHOLIC FAMILY, is a history of colonial Australia, not of the famous and heroic, but of the small people, the anonymous people who were the heartbeat of a growing nation-people like the author’s ancestors. It is a story of migration that has taken place throughout human history to establish a new nation and a new people. The author sets out on a journey with his ancestors, who gradually take on flesh and blood from the bone-dry official documents. His discoveries are startling. All his ancestors are from the British Isles, all arriving by the 1830s, two on the First Fleet in 1788. Most are from southern England. Astonishingly, four are from two neighbouring villages in Wiltshire: Semley and Donhead St Mary. There is a small Irish contingent. Two convicts and one free settler came from counties Dublin, Monaghan, and Donegal. A farming family of four from Aberdeen Scotland, the Burgesses, literate people with a keen sense of decorum, make up the full complement of ancestors.

It is surprising how much he finds out about them all-joys, successes, and tragedies. Their lives are anything but dull. There are nine convicts in the direct line of his ancestors. He traces their lives against the social and historical background of colonial Australia, presenting a very different picture from the view usually found in school history books. They all thrive, taking advantage of their second chance. This book is the story of their redemption.

Besides offering the reader an interesting, sometimes gripping family story, he unfolds the cultural continuities in which his ancestors acted and how they responded to those continuities in a totally different physical environment. He seeks to discover to what extent the outlook, culture and character of his ancestors worked to make his extended family and him what they are. And, finally, perhaps most importantly, he sketches a picture of the way Australia developed as a new people and a new nation. In 1950, most Australians had an ancestry like his.

Since the publication of Prison Hulk to Redemption in 2016, the author has made many adjustments and additions, besides rewriting passages that could have been clearer. In preparing this second edition, besides thoroughly revising the text, the author stresses the social and cultural continuities to bring out his ideas on what it means to be a people and a nation. These ideas are drawn from his interpretation of Edmund Burke’s political philosophy which he conceives as a Natural Law conservatism. Burke had distinct ideas on how a healthy nation develops and, if it is not careful, how it decays, collapses, and falls prey to takeover.